Most successful racecars end up being put in the team or manufacturer’s archives and are preserved for years to come, like Ayrton Senna’s and Alain Prost’s McLaren MP4/4s, for example. The various MP4/4s are maintained and displayed by Honda and McLaren at their respective headquarters – however not all automakers hold their winning racecars so dear to their hearts.

When Ford won the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans, the winning car, chassis P/1046, was shipped back to Shelby in America to under go transmission testing. It was later repainted in a silver and black scheme and sent to race at Daytona in 1967 where it was crashed by driver Lloyd Ruby.

After some repairs and a short promotional tour, P/1046 was parted out by Holman-Moody, with its chassis being sold to a man named David Brown. Holman-Moody then set about converting the car into a road-going supercar and giving it a gold metalfake paint finish – a project commissioned by a man named Ed Zamarelli.

Now, RK Motors Charlotte and New Hampshire-based restoration experts Rare Drive Incorporated have restored P/1046 to its former glory. The restoration job is based on a hoard of period-correct photographs and also features parts that are meticulously replicated from original pieces for identical thickness and weight measurements. With the original black paintjob, white racing stripes and gold-finish wheels, P/1046 now looks exactly like it did on the morning of June 18 1966.

GT40 P/1046 will return to Circuit de la Sarthe in June 2016 – the 50th anniversary of its win at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. Making things even more special will be the new Ford GTs racing in the event – which mark Ford’s re-entry into sportscar endurance racing in Europe.